Do pivnice (1983)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Jan Svankmajer

Writers:

Josef Kolber (play)
Jan Svankmajer (writer)

Genre:

Animation | Short

Plot:

A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form. |

Plot Keywords:

Based On Play

Cast

Monika Belo-Cabanová	...	Little Girl
Ol'ga Vronská	...	Old Woman
Aleksandr Letko	...	Old Man

Also Known As:

Down to the Cellar

Runtime:

15 min

Country:

Czechoslovakia

Language:

Czech

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:Unrated

Company:

Slovenská filmová tvorba Koliba (SFT)

what a girl goes through to get potatoes!

This brilliant 15-minute short, combining live action of: a little girl going down to the cellar to get some potatoes; an old man; an old woman; and a cat, and stop-motion animation of the potatoes and some hungry shoes, is eerily fascinating. (Stop here if you want to see the piece with no preconceptions).Images include the woman making coal blocks out of coal dust & eggs, hungry shoes eating a croissant, a man lying in a bed of coal and pulling lumps of coal over him as a blanket, and the poor little girl trying to get a basket full of potatoes back up the stairs. Whenever her back is turned, the potatoes find a way to roll back into their bin. She props the lid of the bin up with a piece of wood. It's evident from the thumping that the lid would bang shut if it could (which it did previously, to the consternation of the girl). The last time the black cat appears it seems to be extremely large. As the girl runs up the stairs, the potatoes fall out of the basket, heading back to the bin. The cat is just sitting grooming itself. The girl heads back down to her apparently sisyphean task - the cat looks at her and runs after her with a miaow.